Sharron Angle: Tea Party ousted Robert Bennett because he "outlived his usefulness"

The Harry Reid campaign thinks they've found another high-octane Sharron Angle quote that will help them paint her as too harsh and extreme for the Senate: She claimed last night that Senator Robert Bennett, who was ousted by the Tea Partiers last month, had "outlived his usefulness."

The Reid camp plans to go on the offensive against Angle's claim, in order to make the case that she's the "queen of over the top rhetoric," as one adviser just told me. They're linking it to other harsh Angle quotes, such as her hint that citizens may soon resort to "Second Amendment remedies."

Angle, a Tea Party favorite, made the claim about the 77-year-old Bennett on Fox News late yesterday. She had been asked to respond to Bennett's apparent criticism of the Tea Party, in which he said that there are "too many people willing to give up on America from the right":

Angle shot back by suggesting that the Tea Party is comprised of "mainstream" Americans:

"I'm glad to be lumped with a crowd of mainstream Americans who believe, as they showed at the polls, that Senator Bennett has outlived his usefulness. I suppose he's not mainstream any longer. He has become one of those elitists that is no longer in touch with what the country is really thinking about in these economic times."

"Senator Reid has a tremendous amount of respsect for Senator Bennett, and for her to make such callous comments like he's `outlived his usefulness' is out of line," Reid spokesman Jon Summers says.

The Reid campaign has adopted a deliberate strategy designed to define Angle as extreme, unhinged and temperamentally unfit for the Senate before her campaign gets off the ground. Given how close the race is, success in this endeavor may be key to Reid's survival, and they're hoping this quote -- about a fellow Republican, no less -- serves as more ammo.

UPDATE, 3:10 p.m.: DNC spox Hari Sevugan piles on:

"While 'death panels' were nowhere to be found in the health insurance reform bill, it looks like Sarah Palin can find a one-woman version of one in Nevada where Sharron Angle thinks people who criticize her political positions should die. Her sentiments are sick, but that fact that Republicans endorse, as their standard bearer in Nevada, someone who wishes death upon her critics and calls for `Second Amendment remedies' to deal with her political opposition is just as disturbing."

If the people of Nevada vote for Sharron Angle, I'm never going to Nevada. Not out of protest or as a boycott, but because I'm flipping terrified of being around the type of person who could vote for someone like her.

This is rich: "Senator Reid has a tremendous amount of respsect for Senator Bennett, and for her to make such callous comments like he's `outlived his usefulness' is out of line," Reid spokesman Jon Summers says."

Is Senator Bennett not one of the GOP obstructionists bent on destroying the economy for political gain? If he's not, why doesn't Senator Reid exclude him when lambasting the Right? If he is a member of said obstructionist Right, bent on destroying the economy for political gain, how can he respect him?
?

Meh, I don't think the DNC's attack is really all that effective. It just sounds off, and gives Angle the easy out of "oh you're just misconstruing what I said".

A better attack would be to note how conservative Bennett was - find some of his most conservative views - then say:

"Look how conservative Bennett was...and Sharron Angle called him a "moderate". If Bob Bennett was a moderate, just how extreme does Angle have to be to consider herself a true conservative?"

Follow it up with two or three of her most extreme positions, scrapping Social Security, scrapping Medicare, Jobs not part of a Senators work, incest/rape lemonade, spoiled unemployed...take your pick.

How much of a total no-hoper do you have to be to end up giving Reid a second chance?

Just watch as the tea-bagging goobers snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

November 2010, is a going to be a national repeat of New York's 23rd Congressional district election in November, 2009 -- when the combined efforts of the tea-baggers, Palin, Limbaugh, etc., delivered the district to the Democrats for the first time since the Civil War.

"In this election season, Senator Harry Reid's campaign events often include claims of how many stimulus funded jobs he's created. But how many of these construction jobs are going to workers in the country illegally?

"... a Pew Hispanic Center study shows 17-percent of all construction workers are in the United States illegally. Reid says not in Nevada. "That may be some place, but it's not here in Nevada."

"But their latest 2009 numbers show Nevada is the state with the highest percentage of "unauthorized immigrants" in the labor force."

Looking at the comments here fills me with hope. If the people writing the nonsense posted above are typical of the American left, winning in November will be much easier that anyone imagined.

Posted by: skipsailing28
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if november rewards anyone who would refer to another human being as having 'outlived his usefulness,' not to mention calling for armed insurrection and knowing so little about the Constitution as to think it's a Second Amendment remedy, then the lunatics will have taken over the asylum, and we will just have to wait for the pendulum to swing back to the middle, where I just hope it would stop for a while at least.

Seriously? Reid and Greg want us to believe this was a death threat against Senator? You guys are idiots. This is a pretty run of the mill expression Greg unless you were just born yesterday. Bennett has endorsed Reid for and practical purposes. This is a disgruntled back stabbing loser. Angle was pretty gentle.

Seriously? Reid and Greg want us to believe this was a death threat against Senator Bennett? You guys are idiots. This is a pretty run of the mill expression Greg unless you were just born yesterday. Bennett has endorsed Reid for and practical purposes. This is a disgruntled back stabbing loser. He obviously outlived his usefulness as far as Utah Republicans are concerned. Angle was pretty gentle.

Seriously? Reid and Greg want us to believe this was a death threat against Senator Bennett? You guys are idiots. This is a pretty run of the mill expression Greg unless you were just born yesterday. Bennett has endorsed Reid for all practical purposes. This is a disgruntled back stabbing loser. He obviously outlived his usefulness as far as Utah Republicans are concerned. Angle was pretty gentle.

I'm so glad we're going to the mattresses for Reid, without him we would have had to kiss the single payer option goodbye, cap and trade wouldn't have been enacted, immigration reform wouldn't have occurred and the Stimulus that even Krugman said was just the right size would have languished in the Senate. It's not like Durbin or Schumer could have done a better job. He's been the most effective Majority leader in my lifetime. No one has made greater use a filibuster-proof majority than he.

"The Reid campaign has adopted a deliberate strategy designed to define Angle as extreme, unhinged and temperamentally unfit for the Senate "

Isn't it clear that regardless of Reid's strategy, she is in fact extreme, unhinged and temperamentally unfit for the Senate?

On the question of temperament, she even irked fellow Republicans in the state legislature for always voting "no" on issues for no apparent reason. Imagine her in the Senate, where she can put a hold on everything and bring the government all by herself.

I love to read the posts of these liberal idiots.... They spew that "Angle" is extreme, unhinged and temperamental.... what a joke.... This gal is the picture of sane and grounded compared to our present "Secretary Of State"... Did any of you idiots see the video of her go after that guy in Africa during a question and answer session???? You liberals keep on clucking... see you in November....

Reid is still very unpopular, so Angle may well pull this out (I admit not to knowing Nevada politics well--it's a long way from West Virginia). But if she doesn't she can blame (at least) the following things:

can you point to where reid or sargent said it was a death threat, please.

the point of pointing to the comment is to highlight how over the top and out of the mainstream she is.

she of course demonstrates this every time she speaks, as does rand paul. paul is laying low now, but won't be able to do so all the way to the election.

these two in particular are self defeating candidates. and, by either associating other rightwing republicans with them or forcing those other candidates to rebuke these two and other extremists, they are bad news for the republicans in general.

Angle: "I'm glad to be lumped with a crowd of mainstream Americans who believe, as they showed at the polls, that Senator Bennett has outlived his usefulness."

This woman is showing more ignorance every time she opens her mouth. Bennett wasn't defeated "at the polls" by "mainstream Americans." In fact, he was never given the chance to run in the Republican primary at all; the ultra-right teabagger delegates who dominated the Utah GOP state convention selected two other candidates to run in their decidedly less than open and democratic primary.

Bennett's "usefulness" was not decided by the voters of Utah, but by an extremist clique of party insiders. Had voters been given the choice to vote for him "at the polls," he most likely would have won easily. That Sharron Angle doesn't understand this basic fact is emblematic of her candidacy. That she can be so glib about it is jawdropping.

Sharon Angle and the Tea Party conspiracy launched by Dick Armey with money from right wing extremists groups from around the world, such as the massive English Law firm that he works for are turning out to be wolves in sheep clothing, having more in common with copper heads from the civil war era stabbing America in the back in a time of civil war or with the Bund party that favored Hitler and Hoover prior to World War two the American people are being deceived by these tea people and if they don't wake up and smell the coffee these clowns will drag us right back into the burning barn with the same old tired economics and policy that the republicans used to get us into this mess in first place. Don't get fooled again and make no mistake they might suck up and play on the ignorance of the American people but these guys leading the tea party behind the curtain only love one thing, greed and they only want one thing, power. Time to send the tea people and most of the republicans packing and get with getting America back on track. Time to brush aside the tea message of hate and fear and get on with being Americans. For the last 18 months the tea people and republicans have done nothing to help America except cry about the poor billionaires who have been squirreling away profits while exporting jobs and saying NO to everything having to do with Change. Don't get fooled again, Americans are not tea people, wake up and smell the coffee!